ART-PRESENTATION: Marcel Dzama-Revolution Blues

Drawing is the foundation of Dzama’s artistry. He got his breakthrough as a young artist with his distinctive colored drawings in saturated shades, self-made fables and a surreal drama and black humor, an image world that could be taken from a fictitious U.S.A., influenced by early superhero comics, science fiction and early Hollywood.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galleri Magnus Karlsson Archive

Marcel Dzama’s solo exhibition “Revolution Blues”, at Galleri Magnus Karlsson, is named after a song by Neil Young, marks a political position. In his the new works, the texts have more the form of slogans and manifest, that comment on the current political situation of the United States and the World. In the work “Deplorables and Their Simpleton Leader Will Have a Great Fall” (2017), a Humpty Dumpty-like figure (suspiciously similar to a newly elected president) speaks from a pulpit, next to him is a wolf prompting. White ghosts by the speaker’s feet gives us an eerie reminder of the Klu-Klux Klan. Dzama also incorporates feminist thoughts in several of his new works, where titles such as “Revolutionen kommer att vara kvinnlig” or “Resist and We Have Arrived” tell a tale of an alternative path and of change. As a part of the exhibition is on presentation Dzamas film “Une Danse des Bouffons (A Jester’s Dance)”, commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival and first shown at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto in 2013. The film is the artist’s fictionalized account of the ill-fated, romantic affair between Marcel Duchamp and Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins (who served as the model for Duchamp’s last major artwork Étant donnés). In Dzama’s film, using a recreation of “Étant donnés”, a mythological trickster awakens Maria Martins from the sculpture. Finding Duchamp held captive and forced to blindly recite chess moves, Martins enters into the unknown game in hopes of saving her love. The role of the trickster was partly inspired by the Nigerian mythological god Edshu, recognizable by his hat that was colored red on one side and blue on the other, provoking confusion and argument amongst members of a community who would disagree on the color he was wearing. His mischief, while appearing to have a destructive effect, could also be perceived as allowing people to see that more than one perspective or answer exists.

Info: Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Fredsgatan 12, Stockholm, Duration: 13/5-18/6/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-17:00, Sat 12:00-16:00, www.gallerimagnuskarlsson.com